qui coepit in vobis opus bonum
by catie-writes-things
Summary: It's not what he does, so much as it is what Another does through him, that remakes him into something new. (AU: Jason Todd is a priest) [confidens hoc ipsum quia qui coepit in vobis opus bonum perficiet usque in diem Christi Iesu]
1. beati estis cum maledixerint vobis

The rectory phone rang late Saturday night, as Jason was reading on the couch. Setting aside Saint Catherine's Dialogues, he answered it on the third ring.

"Is this Father Jason Todd?" a female voice asked.

"Yes."

"My name is Dr. Fernandez. I work at Arkham." She paused, briefly. "I'm calling because...well, it's a bit of an odd request…"

"Try me," he said with a tired smile. He was a Gotham City priest, after all.

"We have...a patient...who's dying. He..." The doctor paused again, clearly uncomfortable.

"He requested a priest?" Jason guessed.

"Well, yes. Actually, he requested you, specifically. I don't know if you...have a connection?"

"Who's the patient?"

"Well, he's...that is, technically, he's a John Doe, but everyone…" Jason could hear the doctor take a deep breath on the other end of the line, and his heart plummeted. He knew what her next words would be. "It's the Joker."

"I see."

"I understand if you don't want to come…" She trailed off into awkward silence.

"No," he said after a moment's consideration. "I...I should go. I'll be there in an hour."

As he collected the necessary things and drove to the asylum, Jason quietly repeated the St. Michael prayer, for he could not shake the feeling of going into battle.

* * *

"Hello, Padre!"

The Joker was restrained in the infirmary bed, though he looked half dead already. His skin was more sickly yellow than paper white, and his hair more dull gray than bright green. The mess of tubes and wires snaking off his withered body made him no less repulsive, though perhaps more pathetic.

Jason held the black leather case containing his sick call kit in front of him with one arm. Years of training he would never shake told him this was an obvious defensive posture, a dead giveaway that he was going into this confrontation on weak footing. But no matter how much the memory of Bruce's scolding echoed in his ears, he didn't feel like sacrificing the comfort of having the pyx inside the case between him and the Joker.

"Why did you want to see me?"

"Oh, do I have sins I could tell you," the Joker said with a conspiratorial wink. "Of course, you've got a few good ones yourself, don't you, Jaybird? Hey, wanna trade? Tell you mine if you tell me yours?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Aw, come on, Red. Don't be like that."

Though Jason hadn't touched a bottle of black dye since before his ordination, he had a sinking feeling the nickname was not a dig at his natural hair color.

"Are you sorry?" he asked, more accuser than comforting spiritual father. Cardinal Tolan's gentle rebuke replaced Bruce's scolding in his mind, but he continued. "Are you sorry for any of the things you've done?"

"Hmm…" The Joker tilted his head to one side, as if thinking. He probably would have tapped his chin if his hands had not been bound. "Nope!" He laughed, but it was only a wheezing echo of his notorious manic laughter.

"Then why am I here?" Jason demanded.

"That is why, Padre! Don't tell the other little birdies, but you were always my favorite. The way you cried when that crowbar hit you! Why, that's one of my happiest memories."

Jason looked away, his face hot with anger. His right hand held the leather case to his chest. His left hand was clenched in a fist, shaking.

"Do you want to receive the sacraments?" he said through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I know it's you, Red," the Joker continued, pointedly not answering his question. "But don't worry, I'm not telling. I've known for a long time. Bit of a disappointment, really, your bat-dad's big secret. But it has been fun having that on him."

Jason's heart was pounding. "If you don't want to receive the sacraments, I'm going to leave."

"You can't go yet, Padre! I was just saying how you were my favorite. You died so well! And then you came back to torment the old man! Oh, that was better than anything I could have done to him!" The Joker gave a wistful sigh. "I never did thank you properly for making sure I was there to see it."

Jason still refused to look at him "What do you want from me?" he asked quietly. That particular question wasn't directed at the Joker, so of course he chose that one to answer.

"The only thing I've ever wanted, Red: a good laugh!" And he let loose another wheezing fit, more cough than cackle.

"Of course, it did spoil the joke when you found religion," he continued. "Traded your berettas for a biretta, eh? Not how I imagined you wearing all black when you grew up…"

"If it were up to you, I never would have grown up," Jason bit back.

The Joker's eyes lit up. "Ha! There's that spunk I remember!" he crowed. "You're right, the tragic abbreviation of your youth was my magnum opus. But once you made your comeback? Oh boy, was I rooting for you! A gun-toting, wisecracking Batman who shoots crime in the face? Why, it would have been the perfect mockery of everything the old man stood for!"

He wheezed again, even weaker than before. Laughing all the way to Hell, it seemed. Jason took a step towards the door.

"Wait, Padre!" the Joker called out weakly. "I haven't given you your goodbye present yet."

Against his better judgement, Jason stopped.

"Look in there," the Joker said, nodding towards the sink in the corner of the room with a small cabinet over it. Cautiously, Jason crossed the room and opened the metal cabinet door.

Inside, there was a crowbar.

"Now, time was, you would have put that to good use without hesitating," the Joker taunted behind him. "You did, in fact. And I know it's not the same, what with me already on my way out, but I figure that means this is your last chance to get a few more good whacks in."

Jason turned to look at the sickly man. "You want me to…"

"Get your poetic revenge? Absolutely! Like I said, I never got to thank you properly for that showdown in crime alley, Red. And what better way than this? An eye for an eye, a crowbar for a crowbar, right?"

Jason's heart was still pounding. He set his sick call kit down next to the sink. Both hands were shaking now, with anger or fear, he wasn't sure. Maybe both.

"Come on, Jaybird," the Joker coaxed. "If you were still wearing the helmet, I'd be a bloody pulp already. Hell, you would have done it when you were wearing the short pants, if you thought daddy would have let you get away with it. We both know you still want to. Just because you're wearing the collar now, don't expect me to believe you've gone soft."

Jason looked at the crowbar, still propped against the inside of the cabinet. It wasn't the same one, obviously, but he could still feel it, every blow. He could still hear the Joker's laugh, full-throated the way it had been in his prime. This man had killed him, killed a child, and he'd laughed while he'd done it.

And he wasn't sorry, at all. He was proud.

Jason took a deep breath. He remembered how he had cried, on the floor of that warehouse, just like the Joker had said. He remembered how he had prayed for Bruce to come save him, for anyone to save him. He reached out towards the cabinet with one hand, still shaking.

He shut the door.

"Do you want to receive the sacraments?" Jason asked once again, though it felt like his voice didn't even belong to him anymore. With strength no more his own than his voice, he turned and looked the Joker in the eye.

The Joker was frowning like a petulant child. "I've changed my mind," he rasped. "You're no fun anymore. No fun at all. You-"

But whatever insult he had been about to hurl was lost in another fit of wheezing coughs, involuntary this time. It didn't stop.

Calmly, Jason pushed the call button by the door. Dr. Fernandez entered the room, accompanied by a nurse. There was a flurry of activity for several minutes, and then stillness. Fernandez pronounced the Joker dead.

The doctor looked at Jason in silent curiosity, no doubt wondering what had passed in her infamous patient's final moments, but clearly knowing better than to ask.

"Could you...give me a moment?" Jason asked.

Fernandez hesitated, but then acquiesced. Jason looked at the man who had haunted his nightmares for years. The clown's mouth was slack now, neither grinning nor scowling.

This man had done untold evil. He had been the cause, deliberately, of all the worst suffering in Jason's own life. He had shown no remorse, refused the sacraments, and died full of bitterness and spite. What was left for a priest to do here?

Returning to the sink, Jason opened the unused leather case and removed the small prayer book. He found the appropriate page quickly as he walked back to the bedside. Placing his right hand, no longer shaking, on the waxen forehead of the corpse, he read the familiar words.

"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine…"


	2. mundus non novit nos quia non novit eum

Dick stopped by his apartment right as Jason was heading out the door. He came in through the window, in costume. Jason sighed.

"Hey, Dick."

"Family meeting, now," Dick returned by way of greeting, though it was at least with a smile. "Bruce says it's urgent."

"Crap," Jason muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Okay, how urgent? Like, alien invasion urgent, or running new training drills urgent?"

"Why, do you have somewhere to be?" Dick asked skeptically.

"Uh, yeah, actually."

"Really? Well, it'd better be pretty important if you're gonna use it to get out of a family meeting."

"I, uh, have to go to church?" Jason wished that hadn't come out sound like a question. It did seem like a pretty lame excuse when he said it that way.

"You have to go...where?" Dick questioned in disbelief.

"To church," he answered, definitively this time.

"Jay, it's...it's not even Sunday?"

"It's a holy day of obligation," Jason insisted.

"A what?"

"It's the Assumption. I have to go to church today."

"Why?"

"I dunno, Dick, because the pope says so or something!" Jason shrugged. The fact that his brother was wearing tights and a mask just made this conversation more awkward. "I'm kind of new at this whole...church..thing, but I'm trying to do it right, and I know that I have to go today."

"Wow," Dick said after a moment, leaning against the sill of the window he had just come in through.

"What?"

"You're being totally serious."

Jason swallowed. "Yes."

"Okay. You know what, good for you. Go to church. I doubt it's alien invasion urgent. I'll vouch for you with Bruce." Dick had one leg out the window already.

"Thanks."

"Sure thing. Say a prayer for the rest of us. It probably is going to be training drills."

Jason laughed. "Of course."

He knew Dick had been joking, but he would say a prayer for him anyway.

"Where's Jason?" Bruce asked immediately when Dick showed up in the cave alone.

"I talked to him. He's got something important to do," Dick assured.

"This is important," Bruce replied. He had the cowl down, but he was fully capable of using the Batman glare without it.

"Come on, Bruce. Is it an alien invasion?" Dick met Bruce's formidable stare with his own. There was a tense moment. At last, Bruce sighed.

"No," he admitted. "Tim and I have come up with some new drills to run through…"

* * *

Later, after several grueling rounds of training drills, Bruce pulled Dick aside as the others dragged themselves tiredly towards the showers.

"Where is Jason?" he asked in a low voice.

"Honestly? He said he had to go to church today."

"Hm." Bruce considered for a moment. "It is the Assumption," he finally said, half to himself.

Then he walked away without another word.

* * *

Snow was just starting to fall outside. It was supposed to be a light dusting, just enough to give the appropriate seasonal ambiance without making the roads treacherous.

As Jason grabbed his coat from where he'd left it in the sitting room of the manor, he noticed Tim curled in what had to be an uncomfortable position against the arm of the couch, a book held limply in his hands and eyes half shut.

"Hey," he said, gently nudging his younger brother fully awake. "Go to bed, or Santa Claus won't come. I don't want to find you still here when I get back."

Tim blinked up at him groggily. "You're not going on patrol on Christmas Eve."

"No, I'm not going on patrol," Jason agreed. "I'm going to Mass."

"Oh." Tim blinked a few more times. "That's...weird."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Going to church on Christmas is weird?"

"No." Tim yawned and stretched. "It's weird that you're doing it."

Jason gave an exasperated sigh. "Why is it weird that I'm going to church? Why does everybody say that?"

"I dunno, I guess you don't seem like the church type?" Tim answered with a shrug, sitting up.

Jason frowned. "Why not?"

Tim looked at him for a moment. "Really, Jay? You don't know why not?"

Jason pulled on his coat and shoved his hands in his pockets, checking his keys were still there. "Well, maybe I don't want to be the bad son for the rest of my life, okay," he said irritably.

His brother's eyes widened slightly. "Jason, I didn't say you were-"

"Forget it, Tim," he said with a shrug. "It's Christmas. I'm going to Mass. I don't want to argue."

"Fine. Have fun."

The casual response struck Jason as so inappropriate he actually chuckled. "That's not...you don't go to church for _fun_."

"Okay, whatever," Tim said with a tired grin. "You'd know more about it than me, apparently."

"You could...come with me?" Jason offered hesitantly.

"Oh my god," Tim said, his grin widening.

"What?"

"Are you trying to evangelize me?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Is that a no, then?"

"Oh my god, you're absolutely trying to evangelize me," Tim said with gleeful amusement. "You're asking me to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

"I'm suggesting you could go to church on Christmas," Jason deadpanned.

"Yeah, same thing," Tim responded with an equivocal wave of his hand.

"So do you want to come or not?"

"Nah, I'm good," he declined with a chuckle. "But I take it back, Jay. You totally are the church type."

"Whatever, nerd," Jason muttered as he zipped up his coat. "Go to bed."

And he headed out into the snow, still feeling like Tim was laughing at him.

* * *

When he returned late that night, he found Bruce awake, walking the house.

"Did you go to Mass?" Bruce asked him softly, cutting off the Santa Claus joke Jason had been about to make.

"Yeah," he replied instead, in an equally low voice.

Bruce nodded. Then, after a moment, he spoke again. "I wish you had told me you were going."

"Why," Jason asked, "would you have come with me?"

To his surprise, Bruce smiled sadly. "Maybe," he said. Then he clapped Jason roughly on the shoulder with one hand. "Merry Christmas, Jay. Go get some sleep."

"Merry Christmas, Bruce," Jason responded. Then he headed for his room, leaving his father to his own silent vigil.

* * *

"Will you be staying for dinner, Master Jason?" Alfred asked as Jason settled into the couch to wait for Bruce. From the armchair by the fireplace, Damian gave him a distracted wave by way of greeting, not looking up from his sketchbook.

"Not tonight, Alfred," Jason declined, returning Damian's wave. "But I will be here on Friday."

"I'll be sure to make fish, then," Alfred said with a nod.

"Thanks," Jason replied appreciatively. Damian looked up from his drawing at last with a quizzical look as Alfred left the room.

"Why is Alfred making fish for you?" he asked, his brows knit together.

"Because I don't eat meat on Fridays," Jason answered.

Damian only looked more confused. "Fish is meat."

"Fish doesn't count," Jason clarified.

"Says who?"

Jason shrugged. "The Church."

"Oh." Damian's face smoothed back into a look of casual disinterest. He resumed his sketching idly. "Is this one of your religious things?"

Jason leaned back into the couch, looking up at the elaborate woodwork ceiling. "Yeah, it's one of my religious things."

"I don't see the point."

"It's a penance."

"Your god says you must eat fish once a week to atone for your sins?" Damian asked incredulously.

"It's about making small sacrifices," Jason said exasperatedly to the ceiling.

" _TT_. I still don't see the point."

Jason looked back at Damian, who was still looking only at his sketchbook. "You don't see the point of any of it."

"Exactly," Damian replied with finality. Jason didn't particularly feel like continuing the conversation anyway, so he didn't press the issue.

* * *

Once he'd finished giving Bruce his update on the case they were working on, Jason prepared to leave. "You're not staying for dinner?" Bruce asked.

"Not tonight," Jason said as they walked towards the door. "I'll be around Friday night, though."

"Alright," Bruce said with a nod. "I'll ask Alfred to make fish."

Jason smiled, seeing Damian's head twitch ever so slightly in their direction from where he was still curled up in the armchair by the fireplace. "He already knows. But thanks."

* * *

After nearly an hour of helping Cassandra with her homework, Jason could tell she was getting frustrated. "Alright," he said, "I think it's time for a break."

Cassandra sighed and nodded in agreement, setting down her pencil and leaning back in her chair. She closed her eyes for a moment as Jason marked their place in the history textbook.

"You don't fight anymore," Cassandra said abruptly, opening her eyes and looking at him.

"What?" Jason was taken aback. "Just because I haven't been going out on patrol as much-"

"You don't fight." She insisted. "Not here." She placed one hand over his heart.

"I'm not…" Jason sighed. "You're right. I don't."

"Why?" his sister asked, all innocent curiosity.

"I guess I don't... _need_ it like I used to," he answered. "Like Bruce does, and even Dick, and you do. I do it because I can, not because I have to."

Cassandra studied him for a moment. He knew she was processing his words along with what she could read from his body language. "Good," she finally concluded with a nod.

"Good?"

"Shouldn't need this," she said, making bat ears with her fingers.

"You shouldn't either," Jason pointed out.

"But we do," Cassandra responded with a sad smile.

Jason had no answer for that, so they lapsed into silence for several minutes. It wasn't awkward - Cassandra was the last person to mind a lull in conversation. Finally, Jason spoke again.

"How long have you noticed?"

"Since you…" Cassandra made the sign of the cross. "Started then, a little. Now? Obvious."

"Yeah," Jason said, thinking back over the last few years. "I guess that figures."

"I don't understand," Cassandra said. It wasn't a question, like it would have been from Dick, or a judgement, like it would have been from Damian. It was just a statement.

"Me neither, Cass," Jason confessed. "Me neither."

* * *

After they had resumed their work, finishing with history and moving on to physics, Bruce appeared silently in the doorway of the dining room, watching them.

Jason didn't notice him there, but Cassandra did. She smiled at her father and gave a pointed glance at her brother, who was still engrossed in reading a passage from her textbook out loud to her. The peace in his heart was written plainly over every inch of his easy posture, even in this mundane task.

Bruce looked at Jason for a moment, then smiled back at Cassandra. He saw it, too.

Without a word, Bruce disappeared from the doorway as stealthily as he had come, and Cassandra returned her attention to her homework.

* * *

"So what's your thing?" Dick asked casually as Duke shuffled the deck of cards. The informally dubbed "Bat-Siblings Poker Night" was a semi-regular event when all of them were in Gotham.

"What?" Duke asked in bewilderment.

"Each of us has a thing," Dick explained. "You know, like a boy band: the cute one, the angsty one, the crazy one…"

"We are not a boyband, Grayson," Damian cut in.

"Yeah but we could be," Dick insisted. "Have you ever heard Jason sing?"

"None of us plays an instrument," Tim countered.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Nobody in a boyband plays an instrument."

"What about Cass?" Tim persisted. "How are we a boyband if we've got her?"

Cassandra shook her head. "Solo career," she said.

"Anyway," Dick continued. "We all know I'm the cute one. Tim's the smart one, and Damian's the crazy one." Damian threw a fistfull of popcorn at him. Dick didn't even flinch. "I rest my case. So what's your thing?"

"What's Jason?" Duke deflected, starting to deal out the cards.

"Jason's the religious fanatic," Tim answered.

"I don't think that's an archetypal teen idol, Drake," Damian criticized.

"Maybe it should be," Jason said brightly. Tim snorted into his soda, barely avoiding spilling it.

"Really?" Duke said, pausing mid-deal. "I would have thought for sure he'd be the angsty one."

"A common misconception," Dick assured him. "It's just all that Catholic guilt." Tim broke out into actual laughter, and even Damian chuckled.

"No, it's my healthy disdain for this fallen world," Jason said in the same bright tone.

"He actually means that," Dick stage-whispered to Duke, while Tim continued to laugh. Jason looked at Cassandra and shrugged dramatically. She smiled.

"Yeah," Duke said, "Can I be the normal one?"

There was a moment of silence.

"No," the other five siblings said in unison.

"Figures," Duke muttered as he finished dealing the cards. "Nothing about this family is normal."

* * *

Jason and Duke finished giving Bruce their report on the night's events - a relatively uncomplicated night out in Gotham, all things considered. Duke headed for the showers, but Jason lingered by the computer where Bruce had been working while he waited for their return.

"Was there something else?" Bruce asked.

Jason took a deep breath, fingers drumming against the rim of the helmet he held under one arm. He should have told Bruce a long time ago, but he'd never worked up the nerve, and now was left dropping the news at the last minute. "This was my last patrol," he said at last. "I'm giving up the Red Hood."

Bruce didn't even blink. "I see. And why are you doing that?"

"I applied...and I've been accepted...and I'm going to enter seminary in the fall," Jason answered in a rush. "So I'm giving up the Red Hood, and all of this." He gestured at the cave around them with the hand not holding the helmet.

Bruce's face remained neutral. "You're giving it up to be...a priest?" he asked, in a tone which likewise betrayed nothing of what he might be thinking.

"Yes," Jason said firmly.

Bruce looked at him for a long time. Jason waited for the follow up questions, or the criticisms, or the attempt to talk him out of it. None were forthcoming.

"I used to think," Bruce said very softly, "a long time ago, when my mother used to take me to church, that I would have liked to be a priest."

That wasn't even on the list of possible reactions Jason had been expecting. "You've...never told me that before," he said.

"I've never told anyone, except my mother," Bruce admitted. "But that was...a long time ago." Though he kept his face carefully impassive, sadness had crept into his voice; just a hint of what was in his heart, Jason knew.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I...I'm very proud of you, Jason." Bruce stood and came closer, placing both hands on his Jason's shoulders. "I'm glad you're able to do this."

Jason blinked back unexpected tears. "I was never a very good Robin anyway," he joked.

Even more unexpectedly, Bruce embraced him. "You are something even better than Robin," he assured his son.

And Jason realized that, in his own way, imperfectly but perhaps as much as anyone could, his father understood.


	3. vanitas

Jason wiped the steam from the mirror with one hand as he scrubbed at his hair with a towel in the other. Glancing idly at his reflection, it took him a moment to register. When he did notice, he dropped the towel around his shoulders and leaned in slightly, examining his hairline.

Sure enough, though darkened by the water, distinct strawberry-blond roots were now visible along his scalp.

His roommate, Dominic, entered the bathroom at that moment. "Going grey already?" he asked. "First Latin exam got you that stressed?"

Jason laughed and turned away from the mirror. "Nope," he replied. "Going ginger. Haven't done my roots since the semester started."

Dominic raised an eyebrow. "You dye your hair?"

"Have for years."

"Why?"

Jason shrugged. "I started doing it...to look more like my brother."

"When you were adopted?"

"Yeah."

Dominic, who was an identical twin, shook his head. "I used to beg my mom to let me dye my hair so I'd look _less_ like my brother."

"Well," Jason said with a quick glance back at the mirror, "I guess I'm giving it up now. I need a haircut soon anyway."

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" Dominic quoted dramatically. Jason threw his towel at him, and left the bathroom.

* * *

When he stepped through the doors of Wayne Manor that Thanksgiving, Jason was immediately bombarded. Dick was making a joke about slaughtering the fatted calf before Alfred had even closed the door behind them. Tim was asking questions about his classes before he even had his gloves off. Damian was making a sarcastic comment about Titus and Ace missing him as he unbuttoned his coat. The dogs in question came bounding to greet him just on the heels of his youngest brother.

It was nice to be home.

When he pulled the knit cap off his head, the excited chatter came to an abrupt halt. Damian actually gaped at him, mouth open.

"Oh my god," said Tim.

Dick grinned.

Barbara, who was just joining them in the front hall, nodded in approval. "Good to have another redhead around."

She held up her hand for a high-five, which Jason gave her, smirking at Damian, who was still doing an excellent impression of a codfish.

"You didn't know?" Jason asked.

"How was I supposed to know?" Damian demanded indignantly.

Jason shrugged. "Tim knew."

"Drake is a stalker," Damian retorted.

"It's okay," Tim said, putting one arm around Damian's shoulders. "You can't be expected to know everything."

Damian shrugged off Tim's arm with an annoyed grunt.

"So why the natural look?" Dick asked as they headed from the front hall towards the sitting room. Barbara came to his side and looped her left arm around Dick's right, new diamond ring sparkling on her hand.

"Oh, you know," Jason replied, "renouncing worldly things and all that." He clapped Dick on the shoulder. "But my hair is hardly the biggest news around here," he said. "Congratulations, you two."

"Thanks, Red," Barbara said with a smile.

"Don't worry," Dick added as he wrapped an arm around his fiancée's waist, "we won't ask you to officiate."

Jason rolled his eyes. "It'll be years before I can do that anyway."

"When do you learn to do exorcisms?" Tim asked, throwing himself ungracefully onto one of the sitting room's couches. "Because honestly, I worry about Damian."

Damian, who had settled himself on the floor with the dogs, glared at Tim. "I can give you reasons to worry, Drake."

Tim waved one hand in Damian's direction and gave Jason a pointed look.

Jason laughed. "That's way above my paygrade." He settled himself into an armchair by the fireplace as Dick and Barbara sat on the couch opposite Tim.

"Do priests get paid?" Dick asked curiously.

"Not much," Tim answered before Jason could. At the confused looks he merely shrugged. "I researched it when Jason told me he was going to seminary."

"Stalker," Damian muttered, scratching Titus behind his ears.

"Who's got a stalker?" Bruce asked by way of announcing his presence in the room.

"In this family?" Selina asked by his side. "Don't we all have a few?"

Jason looked at Bruce. Bruce raised one eyebrow, just slightly.

"Gone back to your roots?" Selina said.

Jason smiled and shrugged. "It was time," he answered.

"Really?" Damian scoffed. "She knew, too?"

"It's a good look," Bruce said to Jason, ignoring his youngest son's indignation.

* * *

Damian would find no allies in Duke, who had discovered Jason's hair color in a game of two truths and a lie on a slow patrol night, or Cassandra, who had always been able to smell the hair dye on him. By the time they finished the pumpkin pie that night, Damian was forced to admit that, somehow, he had been the only one in the family not to know this particular piece of information.

Jason, who had not intentionally left him in the dark, was mildly amused at how much Damian was annoyed by this.

"Why did you dye your hair in the first place?" Damian demanded later that night, having cornered Jason on his way to bed.

"When I became Robin," Jason answered, "I did it to look like Dick, so it wouldn't be as obvious."

Damian came close to a repeat performance of his earlier codfish impression. "Father made you…?"

"No," Jason said sharply. "He never made me do it. It was my idea."

"Oh," Damian said quietly. He gave Jason an appraising look, in silence.

"What?" Jason asked after an uncomfortable moment.

"First the priest thing, now this…" Damian said accusingly, "I feel like I've never seen the real you before."

"Well," Jason said with a tired shrug, "Maybe I haven't been the real me until now."

"Hm," Damian replied, "Perhaps." Then, after a beat, "Father was right. It is a good look for you."

"Thanks."

"Good night, Todd."

"Night, Damian."

As his youngest brother walked away, Jason was fairly certain he heard him mumble something sarcastic about "religious things".

* * *

When Jason returned to his dormitory on Friday, Dominic was already there, sprawled on his bed with Aristotle's Metaphysics open in front of him.

"Good Thanksgiving?" Jason asked him.

Dominic happily closed his book. "My older sister's having a baby, and my brother just got engaged, so that took the focus off the young priest-to-be, thankfully."

"Wow," Jason said, "your family must be thrilled."

"Yeah," Dominic agreed with a smile. "How about you?"

"Well, my older brother is engaged, too," Jason said, sitting on his own bed and kicking off his shoes. "It was nice having everyone together again."

"I'll bet," Dominic said. "How is it _my_ family is the super Catholic one, but _your_ family has way more kids?"

Jason laughed. "Well, you know Bruce Wayne and his habit of collecting orphans…"

"Right," Dominic replied slowly, fidgeting with the cover of his book. "So, that thing with your hair…"

Jason ran one hand over his red-blond locks, which had grown out just enough to start to curl. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Is it...weird? Not looking like your family anymore?"

Jason considered for a moment. "No," he said at last. "Not really. The call to the priesthood...it calls you outside of your family, you know?" Dominic nodded, looking down at the book in his hands. Jason continued, "So it's just an outward sign of that, I guess."

There was a moment of silence. Dominic seemed to be considering Jason's answer.

"You know what my brother Damian said to me?" Jason said suddenly. "He said he'd never seen the real me before."

Dominic laughed. "So your melodrama runs in the family."

"I'm adopted."

"Doesn't matter," Dominic insisted.

"Okay," Jason conceded, "you're right. It doesn't."


	4. si autem mortuum fuerit

They spent a week in silence, preparing.

They didn't say a word to each other. They passed the time in adoration, in prayer and contemplation, in spiritual reading, without a sound.

 _Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell._

It was a silence like the tomb, Father Mark told them in his homily on the first day. Like the tomb of the Great High Priest whose ministry they would enter into soon. A servant is not greater than his master.

Jason knew a thing or two about that.

He used his voice only to sing the liturgy of the hours, and, on the last day, to confess his sins.

* * *

There were five of them ordained that year.

Jordan, a convert, whose family refused to attend.

Luis, who was raised by his grandmother, a tiny woman who sat in the first pew.

Michael, whose nine siblings were all present - his oldest brother already a priest.

Dominic, whose family filled out the pew with Luis's grandmother - his older sister and her husband and their six-year-old son, his twin brother and his wife, and his parents.

And Jason.

Jason's family was there as well - Bruce and Alfred and Dick and Barbara, Tim and Stephanie, Damian, Cassandra, Duke, and even Kate. They filled the pew behind Dominic's family. They stood and kneeled at all the appropriate times. Barbara said most of the responses, the ones she knew. Only Bruce said them all, and softly. Jason couldn't hear him, but he could see his lips forming the words.

 _For I have come to set a man against his father...and one's foes will be members of one's own household._

After the homily, the five of them stood before Cardinal Tolan, their backs to the congregation. They made their vows together, with one voice, promising themselves to the service of Christ and the Church. They knelt before the cardinal's throne and promised him their obedience.

Then they prostrated themselves before the altar, and the congregation prayed the litany over them. Jason could no longer distinguish any individual voice from the crowd. Face down on the cold stone floor of the cathedral, he didn't know if any of his siblings joined the prayer. He didn't know what Bruce was doing. He saw nothing.

 _For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord._

When the litany concluded, they rose, still facing the altar. The went before the cardinal, each in his turn and knelt again. He laid his hands on their heads in silence. The other priests did the same.

When the cardinal sang the prayer of ordination, Jason kept his eyes closed.

It was Michael's brother who vested them, now a brother priest to them all. One by one, they received the new stole, and for the first time, the chasuble. One by one, they were bound and yoked with Christ forever.

Jason was the last in line. He kissed the cross at the center of the stole and placed it on his neck. His fellow priest lifted the chasuble over his head and smoothed the folds of the seamless white garment over his shoulders.

 _Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me._

When he knelt before the cardinal again, Jason presented him with his hands. They were hands that had fought, and spilled blood. Hands that had grasped desperately for a way out of a coffin, and hands that had struck out in wrath, seeking vengeance. Hands that had been clasped in prayer, seeking forgiveness for all they had done.

The cardinal anointed his hands with holy oil, and wrapped them in white linen.

 _Those who find their life will lose it, and who lose their life for my sake with find it._

As the mass continued, the newly ordained priests took up their place beside the cardinal, facing the congregation once more. Jason spared a brief glance at the second pew.

Alfred was smiling. Bruce looked solemn. He thought he saw Damian furtively wiping his eyes. Cassandra had put an arm around her younger brother's shoulders, and he hadn't pushed her away.

When the time came to distribute the Eucharist, Luis's grandmother proudly came forward first to receive from her grandson's hands. Michael's family and Dominic's followed, their newly ordained brothers and sons presenting them with each sacred species.

Jordan hung back until it was time for the rest of the congregation to receive. So did Jason. No one in the second pew came forward.

After the mass, there was a frenzy of activity outside the cathedral, as everyone came forward to congratulate the newly ordained priests and seek their blessing. Old women and young children, the Sisters of Life in their blue and white habits, strangers and friends, the younger seminarians and the deacons, newly ordained themselves.

The families of the new priests, who had been first inside the church, were now the last to come out. Jason's siblings were cheerful, but distant in a new way. He had been set apart from them now, and they all felt it, regardless of what they believed or didn't.

Bruce was the very last to come forward. He said nothing, but took both Jason's hands in his own, palms facing up. For a moment their eyes met. Then the man he called father bowed, and kissed his fingertips.

 _So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!_


	5. misericordes sicut pater

On the Sunday afternoon one week after his ordination, Jason made time to visit the manor. He found Bruce in the cave, of course. He was in full costume, working at the computer, though he pushed back the cowl as Jason approached.

"I thought you'd be busy." Bruce's voice was as rough as his greeting.

"I am. But I heard confessions for the first time yesterday, and I...wanted to give this to you."

Jason handed the small box to Bruce. He hadn't wrapped it - that seemed too tawdry for a gift like this. Bruce removed his gloves, then lifted the cover, and read the handwritten note on the inside.

 _For my father,  
Who taught me about justice  
And about mercy  
_ _-Fr. Jason Todd_

Bruce looked at the note for a long moment, then set it aside. Gently, he removed the folded purple stole from the box.

"I never..thanked you," Jason said, flexing his right hand nervously, "for not letting me…well."

Bruce shook his head. "It was my fault that you...that we wound up there at all."

"Still," Jason insisted, "I would have done it, if you hadn't stopped me. And it would have been wrong, and I would have regretted it. I did enough things that I regret. But you didn't let me kill him."

"I wanted you to do it. I wanted to _let_ you do it. He deserved it."

"Right," Jason agreed. "That's why it was mercy."

"That's not...how I would have put it."

"I know. But the truth is, I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for you. In a lot of ways." He nodded at the stole in Bruce's hands. "That wouldn't have been possible without you."

Bruce brushed his thumb over the celtic cross embroidered in gold on the stole. "It looks like the one on…"

"Yeah," Jason confirmed, "I picked that out."

Bruce didn't look at him. "Why?" he asked softly.

"Because he sent me back to you."

Bruce closed his eyes, but continued tracing the lines of the cross with his thumb. "I'm sorry that I…" One tear, then another escaped as his voice trailed off.

"You know I forgave you, years ago."

"No," Bruce said. He paused, opened his eyes, and swallowed. "At the mass...I wanted go to confession before, so I could receive Communion. But I...I couldn't do it."

Jason blinked in surprise. "Oh."

Bruce's tearful eyes remained downcast, a father ashamed before his son, and yet also a son afraid to ask forgiveness of his father. He stood perfectly still, in that way only Batman could, except for the slow, repetitive movement of one thumb.

Tentatively, with an authority that was still strange and new, Jason held out his hand. It was more than an offer, less than an order - a commandment given in love, which looked only for love in return.

Bruce placed the stole in his outstretched hand.

Jason pressed the golden symbol of death and resurrection to his lips, then settled the stole around his neck, as he silently prayed:

 _Lord Jesus Christ, look with mercy upon thy servant, that I may minister thy gift of absolution to thy children, and that we may attain together the peace of thy kingdom and life everlasting._

 _Amen._

Jason sat in one of the chairs by the computer, gesturing for Bruce to take the other. He chose to kneel on the ground instead, black cape fanning out around him.

Jason made the sign of the cross. Bruce copied him.

"I don't know how to do this," Bruce said, no longer fighting the tears.

Jason leaned forward and took his father's hand. "That's okay," he said. "I'll teach you."


End file.
